Aljazeera: Not long ago, the Republican Party gazed deep into the future and shuddered with dread.

[pampango]

A 'multicultural GOP' as magical thinking

By 2050, white Americans are expected to become a minority in the United States, while current minorities will become the majority. This does not bode well for a major party that for 50 years coddled the anxieties and fears of white Republicans, particularly Southerners, evangelical Christians and Old Right conservatives.

This is why Republican Party leaders have been increasing outreach among Hispanic voters, whom they believe are kindred spirits "by reasons of faith, industriousness and patriotism", says George F Will. That is, culturally speaking. President George W Bush took the idea of a "multicultural GOP" seriously, but his efforts ground to a halt when the US Senate killed his immigration reform bill in 2007. The problem wasn't Democrats. They mostly wanted it. The problem was Republicans. They saw it as wholesale amnesty.

Bush might have been the last Republican whose vision of the party's future wasn't staggeringly shortsighted. Since he left office, the bigotry and xenophobia that killed his reform bill has only intensified. And it's not just aimed at the president. The most galling, for instance, might be from the Conservative Political Action Committee earlier this year - in which a white nationalist group hosted a panel to discuss the "failures of multiculturalism" as public policy. Neither Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul nor Rick Santorum blinked.

I say this while appreciating Romney's doozy of a dilemma. He must appease the GOP's anti-immigrant base as well as appeal to moderates in swing states such as Ohio, where voters fondly remember, and often celebrate, their immigrant heritage. Romney is already facing the scepticism of gimlet-eyed hardliners.

Even so, Romney has to do something or else, as the man said, he's doomed.

Now that he has the GOP nomination in the bag, Romney is moving to the political centre. While vetting Rubio as a possible running mate, Romney has been distancing himself from anti-immigrant conservatives, such as former Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce, who endorsed Romney, believing that he'd use the Arizona law as a model for national immigration policy. If he can pivot without outraging - and hence losing his base - Romney will have performed an incredible balancing act and signal whether his party has a viable long-term future.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/04/2012427123731527653.html

[Lawlbringer]

1. Always odd to see GWB not being a shithead

but I'm sure Papi and Cheney took him out back on this one. "HOW DARE YOU NOT BE A COMPLETE ASSHOLE ALL THE TIME!?"